"The Flowers" by Alice Walker - an Analysis

Alice Walker's text The Flowers is about a young African American girl, Myop, who explores the land she lives near. Through imagery and symbolism, Walker sufficiently prepares the reader for text’s surprise ending while documenting the transition of Myop's childhood innocence to an awareness of the world’s atrocities. One of the many examples of imagery is Walker’s usage of contrasting light and darkness. The beginning of the text clearly focuses on Myop's childhood innocence and purity which descriptions such as, “She felt good and warm in the sun.” Walker uses affectionate words such as “warm,” “sun” and “good” to emphasize Myop's innocence. As the story folds out, Walker’s terminology takes a slightly darker turn. Myop has found herself in unfamiliar territory, the land isn't as peaceful. Myop begins to turn back, with full intentions of returning home and back to the world she knows. It is at this point in the text where she finds the corpse. The reader is now being bombarded with dismal terminology such as “strange,” “damp,” and “gloomy.” Myop clears the debris from the man's face to find all of his white teeth cracked and broken. This example of imagery further suggests that something that was once white and pure has been broken and tainted by the cruel and harsh reality of the world. An example of symbolism within the text is Walker’s usage of seasons. The text is set during the summer, an inert period of warmth and happiness symbolizing Myop’s blissfully ignorant youth. The association between summer and Myop’s childhood is drawn at the end when the reader is shown that the end of summer represents the conclusion of Myop’s childhood innocence. This symbolism is used to further suggest her transformation by referring to autumn. “Often, in the late autumn, her mother took her to gather nuts among the fallen leaves.” Autumn represents the end of something and the beginning of something new. Myop has changed, or is in the middle of a change, from a young...